Help Me-Chapter 8, Untouchable
by BabyGraceBlue
Summary: Sometimes, living doesn't feel like living anymore. Scully's POV


  
"An exile now, O God, O God.   
No one to help. I am alone"   
  
At this point in my life, at this frightful, dire, ghastly, grim, at this horrible point in my life, life doesn't feel like living anymore. I feel dead, empty, like something once so beloved tossed aside for a minor flaw. I'm afraid of myself, afraid when the next time I'll pass out from the pain will be, afraid that I'll be alone when it happens, afraid that this "thing" might soon control me, make me do or say repulsive things.   
  
They let me out of the hospital, mainly because they can't figure out what to do with me, and neither can anyone at home. Mulder always regards me carefully, almost as if I'm not in control of my actions, like I'm possessed almost. I think we both know what this thing is: a result of the "cure", the metal implant in my neck. We never questioned the safety of putting unknown metal into my body, just if it would save me or not.   
  
It might have saved me then, but it's killing me now.   
  
Mulder insisted I go to the hospital regularly so they can monitor the progression of the thing as it slowly travels down my spine. Every day, I feel it. I feel it squirm through my body, sending chills throughout my body, torturing me.   
  
I refused to go back, however. After that doctor who first treated my cancer... well, I'm just not as trusting anymore.   
  
My mother comes to take Lizzy every day, and make sure I have everything I need. Just to see the fear and repulsion, repulsion at _me_, in her eyes is enough to want to die. It's heartbreaking when the woman who gave birth to you is afraid of what's inside you, afraid of you.   
  
But it's even worse when the man you love more than anything else in this world and the man who promised to always care and love you can't even look in your eyes without turning away.   
  
It's enough to make you want to die.   
  
Over the years, I've been so close to death I could have reached out and touched it, and I did many times. But I always fought back, sensing it wasn't "my time" yet. However, over this past week, this tortuous week full of long hours alone, suspicious looks, and intense pain and fear, I've realized that my time has come.   
  
And yet if Mulder was to only hold my hand, to stroke my hair, to look deep into my eyes and not be repulsed by what he sees there, to look lovingly at me and tell me to hang on, that he'll find a cure, I would do so.   
  
But he hasn't.   
  
And he won't.   
  
When I came home, Mulder said he wanted to talk to me. We sat down on the couch, where I was when the thing first knocked me out, and he looked at me steady and took my hand in his. And he didn't see a single word. He just stared at me, his mouth a bit open, almost as if he was staring in a mix of horror and fascination at me, waiting for the thing inside me to take over. I finally got up and walked away, and he continued staring blankly into the air.   
  
Since the day he bought me home, he hasn't touched me once. Not once.   
  
After all, I've become an untouchable.   
  
I've become a social outcast, a monster, an abnormality, a goblin, an anomaly, an oddity, a demon, a freak. No one can bear to look at me, let alone touch me.   
  
And that fact is more painful than all the discomfort this thing inside me could cause. It's more painful to realize that perhaps I'm not loved after all.   
  
Perhaps I never have been.   
  
Perhaps.   
  
I sigh. Mulder did love me, once. Once upon a time when everything was going his way, when I was happy and he could afford to care about someone else besides himself. But now, now he's too busy feeling sorry for himself to think about what I must be feeling right now, the intense terror I feel at whatever is inside of me.   
  
The doorbell rings. I slowly and carefully drag my tired body off the couch and to the door. It's my mom.   
  
"Hi, Dana," she says, smiling at me, trying her best to look comforting. Lizzy, worked up after a day at her Grandma's, pushes past both of us and dashes to her room. I grin as I watch her go, glad for her company. "How are you feeling?" Mom says carefully.   
  
"Fine actually. It hasn't bothered me all day," I lie.   
She smiles. "Well, that's good." She glances at her watch. "I'm sorry I can't stay today, Dana, I have a date with one of my friends."   
  
"Go ahead," I say. "Have fun." She smiles graciously at me, and turns and hurried back to her car, waving goodbye to me once before quickly driving away.   
  
I exhale sadly, and firmly close the door. "Hey Lizzy!" I call out. "How was your day?" Lizzy obediently returns from her room and sits with me on the couch.  
  
"Fun," she replies thoughtfully. "But I miss you. Why can't I stay here?"   
  
"You're grandma would like some time with you too, you know," I reply, trying horribly to lighten the mood.   
  
Lizzy nods. "Are you gonna die, Mommy?" she ask, cautiously. I bite my lip, trying to hold back tears.   
  
"Why?"   
  
"Grandma said you're sick and if something happened I could stay with her."   
  
I take a deep breath, swallowing my anger. Has my mother given up on me? "Would you want to stay with Grandma?" I ask.   
  
Lizzy wrinkles her forehead in thought. "No. I would want to be with Daddy."   
  
I sadly look down at my daughter and wonder how good of a father Mulder would be alone. I'm not sure he'd even accept the job. "Why are you asking, Lizzy?"  
  
"Because I would miss you. I don't want you to go. I love you, Mommy."   
  
Oh God. The first time she's ever said 'I love you' to me. I start to cry a bit, and I pull her into a hug.   
  
"I'll try not to, Lizzy. I love you too." Lizzy smiles and snuggles into my arms. I think about the first day that I came back, when I did some research and I found some former abductees with the same unexplained illness as I did. I had called one of them, and he had given me the number for a doctor in New York City that had some success with other patients. I ought to give him a call, I realize.   
  
"I'll try."   
  
  
  



End file.
